Your kids, and you, will fall in love with this sweet and lovable block puzzle set from Manzanita Kids. While it’s likely too late to get this in time for Valentine’s Day, this wooden puzzle set is still a great find for everyday play. It will even make a wonderful baby shower or wedding gift. The four puzzle pieces are made with natural maple and cherry wood and they rest nicely in a beautiful walnut tray. Young children will love trying to solve it, with pieces that are chunky enough for even small hands. The puzzle is finished with safe homemade beeswax and organic safflower oil and comes wrapped in biodegradable packing material, such as brown craft paper.

+ Love Puzzle $32

+ Manzanita Kids

email email 0

READ MORE >

email email 0

READ MORE >

email email 0

When I was a little girl, most of my favorite books had slices of nature incorporated. Pippi Longstocking climbed trees, shimmied up mountains, frolicked in the woods, sailed on lakes and had many other nature adventures. The girls of Little Women and Little House went ice skating, jumped in barns, held picnics and walked everywhere. My favorite kid-detectives even solved most of their cases by snooping around outside gathering clues. In fact, even the more modern books I enjoyed showcased kids outside, doing typical kid-minded activities like building forts, walking to school, camping and more. Kids today, unless they’re prone to only the classics, are missing out on this significant nature slant in books, at least according to a new study. The study analyzed 296 books receiving Caldecott awards from 1938 to 2008 and found that as the years go on, there have been significant declines in books that depict natural environments and animals, while what the researchers call, “Built environments” have become more common.

READ MORE >

email email 0

Are you on Pinterest? We are! We’ve been very busy pinning all of our favorite eco-friendly toys, recycled crafts, green baby must-haves, adorable organic kids clothing and so much more. Pinning is one of our newest addictions and it’s also a great way for us to share all of our amazing green finds with you – even a few goodies we haven’t featured on Inhabitots yet. So come join us on Pinterest and check out all of our boards!

FOLLOW US ON PINTEREST >

email email 0

READ MORE >

email email 1

If there’s one movie you should watch before you give birth, it’s The Business of Being Born. The landmark documentary from executive producer Ricki Lake and filmmaker Abby Epstein explores childbirth and the modern maternity care system, offering a different perspective on all of the interventions that often happen during labor and delivery. Now, they’ve released a brand new 4-part series, More Business of Being Born, which takes a closer look at doulas, midwives, birthing options and VBACs. Plus, you’ll hear celebrity birth stories from Gisele Bundchen, Alanis Morisette, Cindy Crawford, Melissa Joan Hart and more. Read our review of the new series here. In celebration of the DVD’s release, we’re giving away the Mother Lode prize package, which includes the The Business of Being Born, More Business of Being Born, an organic cotton onesie, Your Best Birth signed by Lake and Epstein, and the National Guide to a Healthy Birth. Keep reading to find out how easy it is to enter for your chance to win!

READ MORE >

email email 5

Yesterday afternoon it was announced that the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, made the decision to cut all funding to Planned Parenthood. Within just hours, both Susan G and Planned Parenthood were trending on Twitter, and a war unlike any we’ve seen in a while erupted across the Internet. The massive cut in funding will mean a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants that help Planned Parenthood pay for breast exams. According to NPR, Koman states they’ve cut funding because Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress, an investigation started by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups. Planned Parenthood thinks the funding cuts were purely due to Komen failing to stand up to the pressure placed on them by anti-abortion activists.

 Loading ...

READ MORE >

email email 0

With Studio Ditte’s Paper Robots you can build six colorful robots. All you need is scissors, a ruler and glue – no tech skills required! Sure, these robots aren’t made from recycled paper (What a shame!), but they are super-lightweight to ship and easy-peasy to recycle once your child moves on to other toys. These aren’t the first paper robots to hit the scene though – a few years back we shared the cut-fold-connect PIPEROID paper robots from Takashi Tsunoda that are pretty awesome too!

+ Paper Robots € 9,95

+ Studio Ditte

email email 0

READ MORE >

email email 0

The Green Education Foundation (GEF) is attempting to mobilize millions of students from across the country to participate in National Green Week 2012 during February. In what GEF says will be the largest waste reduction campaign in history, National Green Week will be officially kicking off on February 6, but students and schools may choose any week from Feb.6 – April 22 (Earth Day) to participate. So far, GEF reports that almost 5,000 schools have registered reaching nearly six million students. The idea behind Green Week is that students can be empowered to be green leaders of their own school sustainability campaigns. The campaign asks students to participate in activities such as pledging to bring school snacks, water and lunches in reusable containers as part of the Waste-Free Snacks Campaign. Students may also take the Green Energy Challenge, an effort to reduce energy consumption at school and at home, where students actually audit their classrooms, schools and homes to find energy leaks and correct them. There’s also a cool Adopt-a-Plant for your classroom project (complete with adoption papers!).

READ MORE >

email email 0

New research shows that children exposed to air pollution may experience some of the very same physical and genetic changes in their brains that adults who have Alzheimer’s disease experience. It’s not a big shock that more scientists have linked air pollution to health problems. Past research shows that air pollution is linked to asthma, autism, bodily inflammation, poor academic success, brain, respiratory, and digestive problems in early life, low IQ, developmental delays, slower lung growth and other serious issues. In the case of this study, researchers compared the brains of children and young adults living in urban, higher pollution areas with the brains of those living in less polluted, rural areas. While studying the brains, researchers found that the gene expression analysis showed there were major differences in how the genes worked between rural and urban dwellers. In fact, more than 100 genes were changed in the brains of individuals who lived in urban areas.

READ MORE >

email email 0

READ MORE >

email email 0

READ MORE >

email email 0

Thanks to Cool Mom Picks we fell in love with MarbleDear’s handmade personalized pillows that are embellished with eco felt.

Bring coloring and building together with these non-toxic beeswax block crayons discovered by Better Living Through Design.

How great are Sucre & Spice’s wooden utensils found on Babyccino Kids?

If only these Geometric Neon Art Blocks, posted about by Handmade Charlotte, were sustainably designed!

Got broken crayons? Apartment Therapy has three crafty solutions your kiddos will love.

email email 0